By CHRISTINE FREY, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, April 16, 2007

Local campus police are making their presence known following Monday morning's shooting at Virginia Tech.

University of Washington police officers are patrolling campus today and "making it aware that they're there," though the number of officers on duty has not been increased, said Chief Vicky Stormo.

Security officials from colleges around the Northwest have been in e-mail contact this morning, she said. Stormo has also been in touch with security at the UW's branch campuses in Bothell and Tacoma.

"We're encouraging our folks to be extra eyes and ears out there for us to report anything suspicious and just have an increased awareness," she said, adding that there have not been any threats of violence locally.

The UW campus was the scene of a deadly shooting two weeks ago when UW employee Rebecca Griego was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend in her Gould Hall office. The man, Jonathan Rowan, then turned the gun on himself.

The university is still reviewing how it handled that case.

College campuses, which are typically spread over large areas and open to the public, face the challenge "between trying to make the place as safe as possible yet preserve that openness that engages people," Stormo said.

Local campus security officials said they have emergency plans in place in the event of a campus shooting.

Just last week, Seattle University invited Seattle Police to come to campus and train security officials on what to do in case of a campus shooting, said Michael Sletten, director campus public safety. The training has not yet been scheduled.

Mark Reid, the director of safety and security at Seattle Pacific University, said many of the details around the Virginia shooting were still unknown, but that the campus would likely study the incident to see if there are ways it could improve its own security.

"Situations like this in particular, we watch to see if there is something to be learned by what happened there," he said.